A Quote by Stephen Jay Gould
Odd arrangements and funny solutions are the proof of evolution - paths that a sensible God would never tread but that a natural process, constrained by history, follows perforce.
Related Quotes
By contrast with history, evolution is an unconscious process. Another, and perhaps a better way of putting it would be to say that evolution is a natural process, history a human one.... Insofar as we treat man as a part of nature--for instance in a biological survey of evolution--we are precisely not treating him as a historical being. As a historically developing being, he is set over against nature, both as a knower and as a doer.
This entire process of stellar evolution is by natural process alone. We do not have to invoke Divine intervention at any stage in the history of the life-cycle of the stars that we observe.
The History of Evolution is the real source of light in the investigation of organic bodies. It is applicable at every step, and all our ideas of the correlation of organic bodies will be swayed by our knowledge of the history of evolution. To carry the proof of it into all branches of research would be an almost endless task. (1828)
Enter upon thy paths, O year!
Thy paths, which all who breathe must tread,
Which lead the Living to the Dead,
I enter; for it is my doom
To tread thy labyrinthine gloom;
To note who round me watch and wait;
To love a few; perhaps to hate;
And do all duties of my fate.
Paleontologists [fossil experts] have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we almost never see the very process we profess to study.
I think I was born with a natural way of looking at something and trying to find the ways in which it was odd or funny, Even in the sad or angry stuff, I was, 'Well, but where is the funny part of this?'
The endorsement process is an evolution. What you try to do is you endorse someone that you believe in and their ideas and their solutions align with yours.
I think most Americans would agree that we need sensible solutions that fix our immigration system and deal humanely with aspiring citizens currently in our country. At the same time, these solutions must increase the security of our borders.
Because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological.
We have to understand ourselves as a part of the narrative of evolution. And evolution never stops. The notion that human evolution at some point stopped and "history" took over is absurd, though it is widespread among various social scientists and humanists.
That is the stimulus of nature; it is never, never old, and always developing. Even the scarred, wrinkled earth herself is a mere infant among the old ladies and gentlemen that tread foot-paths in the sky.
But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths, or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!
As it is natural to believe many things without proof, so, despite all proof, is it natural to disbelieve others.
No single discovery from any of these fields denotes proof of evolution, but together they reveal that life evolved in a certain sequence by a particular process.
People always ask me, Do you ever think you'll wake up one morning and not be funny? That thought would never occur to me--it's an odd thought and not realistic. Because funny and me are not separate. We're one.
The real question is, Did God use evolution as His plan? If it could be shown that man, instead of being made in the image of God, is a development of beasts we would have to accept it, regardless of its effort, for truth is truth and must prevail. But when there is no proof we have a right to consider the effect of the acceptance of an unsupported hypothesis.
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